According to AOT: “No other Arizona industry produces the same economic impact to the Grand Canyon State than our travel and tourism industry,” said Sherry Henry, director of the Arizona Office of Tourism. “As Arizona’s top export-oriented industry, tourism directly impacts all 15 counties within our state.
By generating thousands of jobs, millions of dollars in earnings, and billions of dollars in tax revenues, tourism is critical to Arizona’s economic vitality.”
Thus, with both domestic & foreign travel critical to tourism, the president's focus on reforming the Visa process, is a positive step.
Obama moves to simplify visa process
Jan 21st 2012, 19:19 by N.B. | WASHINGTON, D.C.
ON THURSDAY, the White House
announced that President Barack Obama had signed a new executive order aimed at promoting travel to America by easing the visa process and reducing paperwork. This is good news. Gulliver has written before about
the need for visa reform, which is a really simple, largely non-controversial way that America could boost its economy. Unfortunately, Congress, sclerotic and divided as usual, was unable to act—and Mr Obama had to do what he could on his own.
Mr Obama's executive order will reduce visa waiting times for Chinese and Brazilian travellers, move towards eliminating visas entirely for visitors from Taiwan, and take the Global Entry programme, which speeds pre-screened travellers through customs, out of the trial phase and make it permanent.
Easing visa requirements for travellers from Brazil and China was one of the major planks of the US Travel Association's "Ready for Takeoff"
visa reform campaign, so this should be counted as a victory for the trade group, which represents a wide swathe of businesses that benefit from tourism...
http://www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver/2012/01/entering-america
